Keep PDF button active without PDF generation

Jim Younger: I was wondering if it is possible to retain the PDF button (with the link to the pdf document) on the pages without actually generating a PDF in the ePublisher processing flow using the PDF pipeline. Another way to say it is that I would like to be able to disable the PDF generation in the target settings and still have the PDF navigation button still show up on the pages.

2011-10-06

This is possible to do in a way that is generic to all ePublisher formats. Use the standard Target Settings to specify if you want to use per document PDFs or per group PDFs.

The necessary overrides and a 2011.2 example project are attached as PDF Placeholder.zip.

NOTE: The overrides should work with most recent versions of ePublisher (2010 on). Otherwise, here is a list of the changes made to enable the behavior.

Shared\pdf\document.xsl
In <xsl:template name="CreatePDFs">, line 183 (for ePublisher 2011.2):
- Replace:
```
        <xsl:if test="not($VarUpToDate)">
```
  With:
```
        <xsl:if test="false()">
```
Shared\pdf\group_document.xsl
In <xsl:template name="CreatePDFs">, line 155 (for ePublisher 2011.2):
- Replace:
```
        <xsl:if test="not($VarUpToDate)">
```
  With:
```
        <xsl:if test="false()">
```
Shared\pdf\group_pdf.xsl
In <xsl:template name="CreatePDFs">, line 137 (for ePublisher 2011.2):
- Replace:
```
      <xsl:if test="$VarGroupPDFMergeFilesCount &gt; 0">
```
  With:
```
      <xsl:if test="true()">
```
In <xsl:template name="CreatePDFs">, line 145 (for ePublisher 2011.2):
- Replace:
```
        <xsl:if test="not($VarUpToDate)">
```
  With:
```
        <xsl:if test="false()">
```